The Alliance for American Quilts

The Alliance for American Quilts
is an umbrella organization for many fine organizations and endeavors aimed at

bringing together quilt makers and designers, the quilt industry, quilt scholars and teachers, and quilt collectors in the cause of documenting, preserving, and sharing our great American quilt heritage. We are committed to collecting the rich stories that historic and contemporary quilts tell about the nation's diverse people and communities.

Their many projects include making available oral histories relating to quilts, access to quilt scholarship resources, documentation of quilt-related ephemera, a huge quilt index with loads of information pertaining to each quilt, an online forum for discussion....too many projects to list here, but click on the above link and you will see. The Alliance has formed formal partnerships with regional institutions of quilt scholarship and is currently forming a relationship with the Center for American History at the University of Texas, the recent recipient of Joyce Gross's extensive and famous collection of quilts.
These are the heavyweights in the quilt world in terms of scholarship, preservation, and also celebration of the future of quilting.

One of the projects of the Alliance, The Center for the Quilt Online, is holding a contest to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Alliance. It is called "My Quilts/Our History".
Entries are to reflect one's personal history as a quilt maker. All the entries must be 15" X 15" and will be donated for an auction benefiting the Alliance. Voting will be conducted by all Alliance members (one can join here. There is a $50.00 fee which of course supports the organization.) There are some prizes....

My next project is going to be my entry for this contest. You don't have to be a member to enter, but creating a special personal quilt for them is a fine and fitting way to support their efforts. I think it is going to be fun! I hope some of you will think about entering, too...

And about that quilt index...if you want to look at crazy quilts for hours, check this out...